Coping With the Crisis and Effects of the Adjustments

In every society there is a natural tendency to create coping mechanisms during difficult times at the individual, community, and state levels. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the first two levels take precedent over the latter for the state is quasi-poor, and unable to help. Moreover, in that part of the world, sociological and anthropological findings suggest that the group is more important than the individual. Not only this traditional way helps retain a strong sense of identity, but also reinforce the social, political, ethnic, religious, and regional solidarity, and loyalty among the people.

Indeed, when the crisis became apparent, and the consequences well assessed, many Ivoirians began to create coping mechanisms to support one another. According to Akindes (2000: 129-130) the gravity of the crisis led many Ivoirians to adopt important

coping mechanisms. Among others things, the creation of traditional structures of solidarity that served as social security for the severely impacted, as they were unable to respond to the needs of the people who used them. That the deepening of the crisis also changed the relations between the people and communities, the consequences of which were the weakening of the traditional social relations, and the emergence or the

reinforcing of structures of intermediations, namely the many competing religious sects or denominations who specialized in the healing of these problems and hope providers. The author adds that the inability of the state to provide for everyone widened the itinerary of exclusion (unemployment, declassification, and marginalization), which became an itinerary of refusal, characterized by the prosecution of the state, accused of injustice and corruption. Gradually, the masses became a critic in the opposition parties.

The devaluation following the CFA Franc caused an increase in the household food budget, the slow increase in the salaries (from 10 to 20%) failing to cope with inflation. There was an increase across the household budgets of the various social layers, causing the suppression of such things as meat, fish, and fat products (Akindes 2000: 126). Another strategy was to modify the structures of expenses on things like

entertainment, clothing, social expenses, and consumption of industrial drinks. These households limited all to necessary, or vital needs. For example, people started to seek the help of traditional healers, traditional medicine, and second hand clothes (131).

In order to feed themselves some poor households used both legal and illegal means to generate funds, for example, multi-activities, child-labor in the informal sector. Corruption in the public administration sectors increased rapidly. Some households made

up of friends, neighbors, co-workers, or religious fellows in Abidjan organized

themselves in associations or buying groups to reduce the costs of basic food necessities (rice, meat, chicken, frozen fish). Finally, those with savings specialized in real estate, to improve their buying power (132).

As for members of the middle class, they made relations with wealthy women to benefit from their assets and revenues to save their own households. Several analysts of social standards in Côte d’Ivoire showed two phenomena: the importance of women in the urban and household economies, due to the weakening of men due to salary crisis. Men never thought of doing certain jobs believed to be dishonoring or dirty (for instance, gate keeper or vigil, garbage collector, low skilled factory worker, and small vendor) which was performed traditionally by non-Ivoirians (especially from Burkina-Faso and Mali, and Niger) now done by high school students (Akindes 2000: 133-135). In the rural areas, many young people migrated from the poor regions of the center and north towards the southwest agricultural zone where competition was already high on land tenure (Akindes 2000: 135; see also Charleard 2000).

Côte d’Ivoire experiences with these adjustments were not good in the sense that they did not benefit the people who got poorer across the board. The state did benefit somewhow but this was short lived, perhaps because these adjustments were never fully implemented in the first place. It could be argue that the SAPs have been responsible for a major increase in poverty –for reasons now well documented summarized as follows: huge national debt leaving no money for infrastructure programs in education, health, jobs, etc…--and hence an increase in general misery of average and poor people, thus higher general dissatisfaction (Kouadio and Gottlieb 1997).

The economic crisis in Côte d’Ivoire’s was the result of the fall of its main commodities prices, low confidence of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) following a massive embezzlement of funds given by the European Economic

Community, fear of foreign investors because of the unstable and uncertain political, fear of the old regimes to be held accountable for their acts, that they might be punished for complicated things further (Akindes 2004: 28). The only option left President Gbagbo was to change the behaviors and mentalities in Côte d’Ivoire, if he wanted to reduce poverty, re-establish confidence, and restart the economy with a competitive industrial sector. He tried, but his attempt was short-lived.

In sum, Côte d’Ivoire experienced its first round of structural adjustment program in 1981. But it was not until 1994 that these SAPs became really known to the general public. In the 1990s, SAPs became popular for a variety of reasons including: their direct effects on the general public, devaluation of the CFA that made everything expensive, the appointment of Allasane Dramane Ouatara to oversee and manage that process, the various measures undertaken by him, and of course the political problems that ensued after he became interested in the highest office in the country.

It could be argued that despite all the bad impacts this had on the people and the country as a whole, the SAPs as a process did not play a significant role in the crisis per say, perhaps, the fact that it has revolved around the person of Ouattara. The crisis in Côte d’Ivoire did not only hit the northerners and western communities who are now fighting against the Gbagbo regime, this may have played only a role as a root cause, not a proximate one that actually triggered the war in September 2002.